DLR and Oysters.

I don't think LU actually does platform tickets as such.

Though I have seen the phrase mentioned once on LU publicity... read on. At Canary Wharf Jubilee line, there are signs (on the movable 'poster boards') that make specific mention of "platform tickets" in a rather unusual way - there are two gatelines at the station, one that serves the main western entrance and one that serves the eastern entrance (well there are actually two eastern street level entrances but I'm talking about the below ground gateline situation).

There is a poster near the eastern gateline at least that states something like "this is not a public right-of-way - you will be charged for a platform ticket if you enter and then immediately exit the station using your Oyster card".

Obviously "platform ticket" is simply the best phrase they came up with to describe the situation when devising this sign so as to make it easily understood to the public, I'm not suggesting the phrase has any official meaning with regards to LU ticketing or Oyster PAYG ticketing.

FWIW, I did test it out by going through one gateline and out the other when using Oyster PAYG one day - my card had already reached a cap earlier that day and the CW to CW 'fare' then appeared as £0.00 - which to my mind suggests that this "platform ticket" is simply treated as a normal journey, albeit one where you don't actually go anywhere!

Whether this works everywhere else is another question - however as I said I have entered and then shortly afterwards exited a handful of stations (all had gates) and I didn't get any £4 maximum (penalty) fares applied, I was just charged for a 'journey to nowhere' instead.

My basic advice to anyone who wants to romp around the LU or DLR networks doing unusual things - such as making long round trips without exiting at any stations or hanging around on platforms for ages - is to just get a Day Travelcard. The Oyster PAYG system is (not unreasonably) designed around the premise that people are going from A to B after all!

If only we could load a Day Travelcard onto an Oyster card. I suppose that would lose revenue, though.

Hmm. Can't quite figure that one out. Going by my thinking (and assuming that you touched-out then a little later touched-in at CW), if the second touch on a reader at CW was regarded by the system as being a continuation of the original journey (i.e. because you were changing between DLR routes at CW), then it should have simply regarded your onward journey to Bank as another leg in that original journey.

And if I've got it all wrong and the readers at CW are set up for a 'hard' entry and exit, then touching on them twice should have resulted in the system ending the first journey then starting a new second journey.

I'll ponder on that one.



Interesting - again I take it that you touched-out and then touched-in at both Devons Road and Custom House. Neither of those two stations could be regarded as an interchange between different DLR routes so by my thinking the standalone readers would be set up for a 'hard' entry and exit - in other words, touching on them would definitively start or finish a journey, as there's no possibility of that original journey continuing because they're not interchange stations.

So I can't quite fathom this one out either - unless again I've got it fundamentally wrong, and the standalone Oyster readers at DLR stations are set up to allow for journeys to continue regardless of how many times you touch on the reader meaning that your original journey from Debden timed out. But I'm almost certain that the readers are not set up like that.

I shall have to investigate further!



Yes, that's quite straightforward. There's obviously long been an OSI at Paddington to deal with the separate H&C platforms, and of course more recently to deal with Oyster PAYG being accepted on FGW's suburban services from the mainline station.

The time limit has since been changed to two and a half hours, and it's going to be changed again though this time (ho ho) it'll be more complicated, with varying time limits depending on how many zones you've travelled through and indeed what day and time of day it is, plus possibly extra time allowance added on when travelling on National Rail services (when they all eventually accept Oyster PAYG, that is!). This change is due to happen in September (information garnered from the results of a FOI request made by a poster in another forum).

A separate reply to address another couple of issues...



But there's absolutely no point in offering this - if people want a Day Travelcard then they can buy a Day Travelcard. Sure, it doesn't come on a snazzy Oyster card, but so what?!

Anyway, if Day Travelcards could be loaded on Oyster cards then the train companies would have used it as another excuse not to get their act in gear in accepting Oyster PAYG on all National Rail routes in London - one of the big advantages of Oyster PAYG is capping, but if Day Travelcards could be loaded on Oyster, the TOCs might well just point at that and say something rubbish like 'where's the need for Oyster PAYG?'

Plus it would also add in extra confusion for passengers, who might then start wanting horrendously complicated stuff like upgrading their capped Oyster card to a Day Travelcard (from a back-room systems standpoint this would be nigh-on impossible anyway).

Then there'd be the issue of people with say a zones 1&2 Day Travelcard on their Oyster card wanting to use it beyond those zones - so they could use PAYG to automatically acquire a ticket extension to get out to say Heathrow in zone 6, but they couldn't use it to get out to East Croydon in zone 5 because PAYG is basically not accepted on any National Rail routes south of the river.

(Sure, this issue applies to holders of season Travelcards on Oyster as well, but they're likely to be slightly more knowledgeable about the system and also are more likely to have the need or desire to travel outside of their zones during the monthly or whatever validity of their season Travelcard.)

Far simpler to just offer Day Travelcards on paper, and get the train companies to accept Oyster PAYG. Which they will, eventually...



Hi slugabed - yes I've read about the controversial situation at Sheffield station, but no - the sign at Canary Wharf explicitly referred to people using their Oyster cards to get through both sets of gates (I'll try and remember to get a photo of it sometime). I presume it was produced as a response to some mouthy complaints from a few of the know-it-all/ know-nothing wideboys who hang around the Wharf. There's nothing really to be gained by using this as a short-cut, unlike the bridge over the station in Sheffield.

However I know that at one time there was a similar situation at Southwark tube station. For those who don't know Southwark station, it's basically got two entrances, both of which have their own gateline - one is from the street (corner of The Cut and Blackfriars Road), the other is an entrance reached directly from the platforms of Waterloo East - there is no access to the street from this entrance (though you can see it out the window!). It's worth noting that the gateline at the Waterloo East entrance was an LU gateline - there's no National Rail gateline here (nor indeed at the other main entrance to Waterloo East).

Passes however were issued to holders of National Rail-only season tickets to allow them to leave Waterloo East by passing through Southwark tube station - the pass obviously opened both gatelines, and so allowed holders to use Southwark station as a short cut. I've no idea if such a pass is still available - I might ask there next time I'm in the area.

I'm sorry, I've drifted off topic again! Though the first half of this post was definitely on-topic(ish), as it dealt with Oysters.

How does it work at Guildford - i.e. what type of ticket is issued, and how is it issued?